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| En route to Maui, extinct volcano on Oahu |
Quite frankly, The Sheraton, Maui deserves its own post. After five days on Oahu The Missus and I set off on a short island hop to Maui, flying from Honolulu to the tiny airstrip of Kapalua. Luckily it really was a quick hop. I was still suffering the after effects of some rather nasty food poisoning and cursing the fish cakes. I mustn't complain though, the design of the room in Waikiki meant that you could be in the bathroom and still look out to the ocean, so I was able to intersperse my views of the toilet bowl with more appealing vistas of the Pacific.
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| Brave face arriving in Kapalua. Does this airstrip have a restroom? |
After a tense, clenched flight, wait for a taxi and brief drive to the hotel, we arrived at the Sheraton in Lahaina. One of the first things that struck me about the hotel is that it doesn't really go in for walls. Like many of the tourist spots in Hawai'i, the hotel takes advantage of the almost constant fantastic weather. In a place where the average temperature ranges from 78f in the "humid season" and 72f in the "dry season", who need walls? Oh and for the English, in real money, that's 25c and 22c. Our December trip, classed as the "humid season" saw an average temperature of 80f. For any Englishman that's the kind of weather where you wonder if you can fry an egg on the bonnet of your car.
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| Sunset from room 1, night 1, in Maui |
On arrival we again shamelessly championed The Missus' Platinum status with Starwood Hotels and were assured we had been allocated an upgraded room. On inspection the room was a fair size but sat in a block of the hotel the furthest away from pool, on the other side of what is rather ominously called Black Rock. It offered fantastic views of Lanai, the neighbouring island, and in truth we saw a stunning sunset on our first night. On the downside, the room was by the lift, far from all amenities, right by the maids' gossip station and most importantly of all, not a suite. While I moaned on a sun lounger and wondered about whether I should write my will now (I'm nothing if not dramatic when ill) The Missus headed off to reception to negotiate another upgrade.
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| "Coo, what a lovely sunset," said the local mynah birds |
Her efforts were not in vain for the next day, after a brief mishap where we temporarily ended up in a room five times smaller than the last, wondering if it was classed a suite because it had two small balconies, we ended up in the biggest hotel room I have ever been in.
Having gotten used to the idea of going on holiday to a resort, letting go of my middle-class desire to see the "true" Hawai'i, this upgrade fitted the bill nicely. Entrance to our suite was off an anti-chamber (with no walls naturally) overlooking the resort and Lahania.
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| View from the wall-less anti-chamber |
Once passed our private entrance way, we were confronted with a long hallway, with a guest toilet to the right. We weren't expecting any guests, no one pops in when you're 7249 miles from Blighty, but this addition quickly became designated my emergency room. Fortunately, this was not needed.
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| Hallway with emergency room at the far end |
Well I don't like to brag but I'm going to. The hallway opened up to a large sitting room with dining table, kitchenette, sofa, TV naturally, access to the enormous sun lounger balcony and breakfast bar with a view over to the bedroom.
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| Lounge/dining area |
The bedroom was as large as our well proportioned lounge in San Francisco. Off this a bathroom with huge walk-in shower, spa bath, another toilet and best of all, his and hers sinks. If I ever strike it rich, the first thing I'll go for will be a sink for each of us. To spit toothpaste out to your heart's content must be the height of all decadent pleasures.
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| Bedroom and bathroom |
Much as I'd have liked to have spent as much time in the room as possible, the hotel did warrant some visiting. It's built around Black Rock where, allegedly, old Hawaiian tribes would dive off the rock into the pristine water below. People spend their days doing the same and the hotel puts on a nightly torch lighting ceremony that runs along the beach and the top of the rock, before the torch bearer jumps into the sea below. It's all a little cheesy and underwhelming for my taste but what lies beneath the waves makes up for it.
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| Torch lighting ceremony, Black Rock |
The Sheraton near enough has its own coral reef right below Black Rock. Too bad we had to share it with everyone else but it really didn't make a difference. After grabbing a snorkel and flippers and not ten feet away from shore, we were awestruck but the number and beauty of so many tropical fish. They're curious little so and so's too and not shy in coming up for a game of chicken with passing snorklers either. I'd read that they can have a habit of biting so I was a little anxious but The Missus is a far more confident swimmer than I and she steamed off to explore more of the reef.
Suddenly The Missus was grunting through her snorkel and pointing as what looked like a dining table with oars loomed into view. Convinced that I'd never see sea turtles, even though they're renowned to swim around the rock, I was dumbstruck to see one glide by. Graceful and calm underwater, the turtle swam right by us, checked us out, dismissed us as yet more tourists ungainly flapping about and went on its way. We saw many more and I don't think I've ever seen anything in the natural world that left such a great impression. While Pearl Harbour is my lasting memory of Oahu, the turtles living right by our hotel, are easily the best experience on Maui.
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| More pools and more cocktails |
Most of the rest of Maui was spent sitting by the pool, reading and having the odd dip when it became too hot. We did venture out of the resort for meals and the opportunity to take photos of the sunsets from slightly different angles but relaxing by the pool was significantly enhanced by the sparse use of Hawaiian Christmas music compared to Waikiki. Even so, we weren't spared the Hawaii-meets-Victorian-Christmas delights here either.
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| Santa ditches reindeer for dolphins in Hawai'i |
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| The Tropics and Christmas; an incongruous mix |
Our final trip before returning to SF, not including a painfully slow minibus ride to the airport where the driver seemed insistent on making everyone miss their flights, was the unmissable excursion to watch sunrise from the top of Haleakala. The summit of this extinct volcano stands at 10,023 above sea level. We were repeatedly warned that the road up is a hard drive with a steep gradient sharp turns, and the volcano sides disappearing beside you. We were also warned that it is very, very cold at the top.
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| The crater |
With indomitable London spirit this advice was largely dismissed. The drive up was easy despite driving a sofa of car. Did anyone design the Mercury Grand Marquis or was it just vomited up by a drunken DFS salesman for a bet? The summit however was pretty cold. Fortunately having left the hotel at 4am we did at least don jeans and jumpers. The Missus even took her coat. Some genius tourists took their duvets and stood wrapped in as much of their bed as they could take with them. I pitied the children of some clearly outdoorsy family who were dressed for the beach.
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| Just before sunrise |
In this cold The Sun deliberately took it's time rising but as the shards of bright yellow light finally shot across alien like volcanic rock the wait was almost worth it. What made it completely unmissable and topped off the experience was the Hawaiian chanting to welcome The Sun. It appealed to my deeply buried inner hippie. It was magical. "This is your sunrise."
